86% of companies believe a multigenerational workforce is the key to success. This success is due to a diverse workforce giving organizations more problem solving, varied perspectives, and diverse skills. This Process Street article will help you optimize and engage employees of all ages. At the end of the post, I’ll tell you about a secret famous butler I met in a multigenerational workforce.

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July 22, 2022
5 Tips to Foster Employee Engagement in a
Multigenerational Workforce
process.st/multigenerational-workforce
Mark Jones
July 22, 2022
Human Resources
86% of companies believe a multigenerational workforce is the key to success.
This success is due to a diverse workforce giving organizations more problem solving,
varied perspectives, and diverse skills. This Process Street article will help you optimize
and engage employees of all ages. At the end of the post, I’ll tell you about a secret famous
butler I met in a multigenerational workforce.
Here’s how to understand and engage a multigenerational workforce:
What is a multigenerational workforce?
A multigenerational workforce comprises five different generations. The term
“Generation” was used in the second half of the nineteenth century to suggest the contrast
between older and younger people. These are the generations in a modern workforce:
Traditionalists: Born between 1927 and 1946
Baby Boomers: Born between 1946 and 1964

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Generation X: Born between 1965 and 1980
Generation Y (Millennials): Born between 1980 and 1995
Generation Z: Born between 1995 and 2010
The ideas and methods of the above generations are as diverse as their ages. However,
understanding each generation is essential to ensure communication and collaboration.
The strengths and weaknesses of each generation
Each generation has different strengths and weaknesses. Every generation contains
individuals with unique personality types and ways of completing tasks. It helps to
remember that some people work harder than others and in different ways, despite being
of the same age.
Traditionalists’ strengths include being:
Committed
Hardworking
Practical
Two weaknesses attributed to Traditionalists are being inflexible and uncomfortable with
change.
Baby Boomers are known to have:
Criticisms of Baby Boomers are that they need recognition to motivate them. They are
also less tech-savvy than Generation X, Y, and Z.
Generation X is known for:
Adaptability
Independence

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Resilience
Their shortcomings are said to be cautiousness, conservativeness, and being too self-
reliant.
Millennials are known to be:
Creative
Far-thinking
Progressive
The one complaint of Millennials is that they lack focus.
Generation Z is known for being:
Communicative
Competitive
Entrepreneurial
Generation Z is considered more cynical than Generation Y and too reliant on technology
to solve problems.
Multigenerational workforce benefits
The three main benefits of a multigenerational workforce are:
More problem-solving skills
Different perspectives
Diverse people skills
With different generations in your workplace, you will see more problem-solving.
Each generation can bring its unique perspective:

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Generation X is good at identifying and developing new talent in their
organizations.
Generation Y has been exposed to smartphones from an early age and is good at
learning new software and using it to implement new processes.
Baby Boomers are great problem solvers due to their years of experience. They also
make great mentors, as they are from a generation that has seen it all in terms of
economic booms and recessions.
Simon Sinek, a leadership expert, gives his views on mentorship:
Watch Video At: https://youtu.be/TChiE1FDXdY
Reverse mentoring is a new and popular perspective on mentorship. Younger members of
your team can assist older team members. One way to boost productivity is by learning
new technology. For example, you could have a staff member from Generation Y or Z
(often referred to as digital natives) showing a Baby Boomer how to use online workflows
and knowledge base software.
The different perspectives of the generations are critical and will help avoid the
presence of egocentrism in the workplace. Each generation realizes that not everyone sees
an issue the same way. A multigenerational workforce will give a good mix of perspectives
based on different life experiences. As a result, your organization will experience greater
innovation and creativity.
Diverse people skills are also an advantage in dealing with customers. Each generation
has its favorite way of communicating, as the list below shows:
1. Traditionalists: Prefer face-to-face communication, letters, and phone calls
2. Baby Boomers: Open to contact via email, letters, voicemail, and face to face

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3. Generation X: Email is their preferred form of communication, and conversations
are short
4. Generation Y: Prefer internet communication and expect prompt feedback
5. Generation Z: Like instant communication across multiple screens with images
This mix of employee communication styles will help attract and retain customers of all
ages. For example, older customers might prefer you to send a letter instead of an email.
The Traditionalists and Baby Boomers in your workforce will be able to show younger
employees how to do this effectively.
Multigenerational workforce challenges
The three main challenges of a multigenerational workforce are:
Communication problems
Different expectations
Negative stereotypes
Communication problems can cause small businesses of up to 100 people around
$420,000 annually. That’s the cost of miscommunication, such as email blunders. With
the cost of misunderstanding being expensive, how can you optimize communication and
make it engaging?
Workflow software is one of the best options; it gives information visually and in an easy-
to-follow process.
An optimized workflow takes a user through a process using a series of tasks. For ease of
use, the tasks are in numbered order. Your business processes can all be simplified. For
an example, take a look at the Leave of Absence workflow below:

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You can also include emails, Word documents, images, and videos in your workflows.
That will help to engage the whole of your workforce, regardless of which generation they
belong to.
Different expectations
Differences in life expectations and differing value systems may cause problems for your
multigenerational workforce. Each generation is at a different stage in its life, and this will
affect their day-to-day decisions. A suggestion to overcome these issues is using
inspirational motivation techniques.
You could try using theory z by Dr. William Ouchi to make employees more engaged and
bring them together.
Theory Z encourages employee engagement by using:
Mutual trust and openness
A strong bond between the organization and employees
Collective decision-making
Free-form organizational structure
Role of facilitator and coordinator for management
Common culture
Informal controls
Human resource development
Negative stereotypes
From my experiences working in social housing, I understand that some people have
negative stereotypes about homeless people. Our life experiences also play a role in
creating stereotypes. In unconscious bias, people take stereotyping one step further and
look for evidence to prove their bias and stereotypes are true. Perspectives, once formed,
can be challenging for people to question.

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To combat negative stereotypes, you can implement diversity and inclusion training.
Diversity and inclusion are values we believe in at Process Street. We have also created
custom-made templates to assist organizations who want to take this step. If you’d like to
use the templates, they are listed below. To use them, all you need is a free Process Street
account:
Diversity Training Process
Unconscious Bias Training Guide
Diversity in the workplace can be a positive outcome; studies have shown that diverse
teams outperform homogeneous teams. Using workflows to help train in areas such as
diversity is a great idea and fosters employee engagement. It’s easy to create a workflow,
see the video below to see how it’s done:
Watch Video At: https://youtu.be/2YX8QMP5I8w
Five tips for engaging a multigenerational workforce

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Consider using these five tips to engage your multigenerational workforce:
1. Use BPM to improve communication
BPM (business process management) is great for increasing speed and efficiency, making
it ideal for improving communication. If you divide your organization’s processes into
step-by-step tasks, you make them available and usable by every generation. As a series of
tasks, workflows also come with the ability to add comments to every task. Every
generation can use them and communicate why they have chosen to complete a task.
You can also use BPM to create policies welcoming to all generations. Why not store them
on our free forever product known as Pages? A 24-7 online knowledge base, Pages can
store all your documents, including SOPs, ISO processes, Approvals, and onboarding
documents. Your documentation can be printed or accessed on devices such as
smartphones. If you have fewer employees, workflows are a great productivity app to
utilize.
2. Offer reskilling opportunities

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You can offer reskilling opportunities to all generations of your workforce. As business
change is a daily process, training should always be at the top of any daily checklist. To
encourage staff members to reskill, you can make the process easier using workflow
management.
At Process Street, we created a workflow to teach employees how to take care of their
computers. If you’d like to see what we came up with, please help yourself to the
Computer Maintenance Guide workflow. The workflow can be stored in Pages and
repeatedly used, eliminating the need to store paper files. To see how Pages can store all
of your documents, please see the video below:
Watch Video At: https://youtu.be/leUCUnIcKEI
3. Provide upskilling training

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You can determine which of your employees to upskill by making an aptitude test. To
guide you through this process, we’ve created a workflow for you.
Try our IQ Test (Structure Template). This workflow will help you analyze your workforce
to find those who can be made better use of, regardless of age. By encouraging training,
you will help to engage your multigenerational workforce.
4. Use workflows to collect feedback
To help employees of all ages feel listened to and understood, collect feedback using
anonymous survey workflows. Allowing your staff freedom to discuss uncomfortable
issues such as workplace conflicts can make every employee feel understood and
engaged.
Please try using our Employee Satisfaction Survey workflow. Getting started with Process
Street is easy if you want to try using workflows to make your work easy. We have almost
a thousand ready-made workflows to help get you started.
5. Encourage team collaboration
A workflow app encourages team collaboration by offering easily understood features to
any staff member. With the ability to comment on workplace tasks, workflows eliminate
miscommunication between different generations. Employees can also add videos and
custom branding or upload documents and photographs to make communication clearer
than it has ever been. Traditionalists and Baby Boomers can upload letters.
Generation Z can also complete a process and show how it was done by including
additional images. With no-code software, team collaboration can be made quicker. You
can find all this and more at Process Street.
The famous butler who was an expert in exports
I once saw a security guard in tears. At 55, he was a recipient of forced retirement. I then
thought of Bill, who worked in my department at the time, and was 83 years old. I
wondered why Bill was still in a job?
Bill had been Marlene Dietrich’s butler, and the rest of his working career was said to be
as enjoyable. His experience brought the export company millions each year, and they
couldn’t function without him.
Have you used our information to engage a multigenerational workforce, or do you
have any other tips you’d like to share? Please let us know your thoughts in the
comments below!

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Mark Jones
Mark Jones is a content writer at Process Street.
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